DOE selected 27 innovators and entrepreneurs to join the latest cohorts in its Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP).
Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation
July 14, 2025
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Selectees will participate in a two-year fellowship designed to bring cutting-edge technologies from lab to market.
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today selected 27 innovators and entrepreneurs to join the latest cohorts in its Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP). Selectees will be embedded within four U.S. national laboratories where they will work with an extensive network of mentors and experts to develop transformative energy technologies.
“The LEEP Program epitomizes DOE’s commitment to empowering American inventors and entrepreneurs to improve the affordability, reliability, and security of our energy system,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Lou Hrkman. “I look forward to seeing this new round of fellows make its mark on American energy and manufacturing.”
Past LEEP fellows have developed breakthrough technologies that became the foundation of thriving businesses. Since the program's inception in 2015, 182 LEEP startups have attracted $4.2 billion in follow-on funding and created more than 3,800 jobs.
During their two-year fellowship, LEEP participants perform critical research and development to hone their startup technologies with the goal of advancing those technologies from lab to market. The program also supports fellows by providing training in business development, networking opportunities, and access to the resources and expertise of the U.S. national laboratories.
Cyclotron Road at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, is welcoming 12 new fellows:
- Luis Valencia (Dale City, California) and Jacob Roberts (Dale City, California): Engineers Biosorbents That Extract Critical Minerals from Abundant Industrial Waste Streams
- Jessica Frick* (Palo Alto, California) and Jiya Janowitz* (Palo Alto, California): Manufactures Ultra-High-Quality Semiconductors That Cannot Be Made on Earth to Serve Advanced Applications Bottlenecked by Crystal Quality
- Albert Kumar* (Palo Alto, California): Building the Next-Generation Silicon Carbide RF Semiconductor Chips Powering 5G and 6G Cellular Infrastructure
- Nina Cochran Warner* (Redwood City, CA) and Menandro Cruz* (Redwood City, California): Using Biomimetic Surface Science to Unlock a New Category of Safe, High-Performing Permanent Hair Dye
- Milad Yavari (Menlo Park, California) and Joe Sawa (Menlo Park, California): A Breakthrough Membrane That Operates in Harsh Conditions Turning Wasted Hydrogen into a Valuable Resource and Making It More Affordable
- Yasmeen AlFaraj (Cambridge, Massachusetts): Enables the Reprocessing of Historically Unrecyclable Thermosets and the Recovery of Valuable Composite Materials for Reuse
- Pankaj Ghildiyal (Riverside, California): Produces Plasma-Created Silicon That Replaces Graphite, Boosts Capacity, Lowers Cost, and Seamlessly Integrates into Existing Battery Production Lines
- Bonnie Maven* (San Carlos, California): Helping Farmers Break the Rules of Genetics—without Gene Editing.
*Fellow was selected and funded through Activate.
- Luis Valencia (Dale City, California) and Jacob Roberts (Dale City, California): Engineers Biosorbents That Extract Critical Minerals from Abundant Industrial Waste Streams
Innovation Crossroads at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is welcoming six new fellows:
- Lance Adler** (Gulfport, Florida): Wildfire Prevention for Power Companies
- Alex Readel (Knoxville, Tennessee): Innovative Hexagonal Boron Nitride Coatings for Harsh Environment Applications
- Evan Stacy (Hattiesburg, Mississippi): Aqueous Photoiniferter Polymerization of Acrylonitrile-Based Polymers to Enhance Carbon Fiber Production
- Brian Washington** (Powell, Tennessee): Aluminum-Air Technology Powering the Future
- Helen Banner: Sustainable Algae-Based Biomaterial Composites
- Viktor Zenkov (Knoxville, Tennessee): Enhancing Energy Efficiency in Data Center Cooling Systems.
**Fellow was co-funded by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
- Lance Adler** (Gulfport, Florida): Wildfire Prevention for Power Companies
Chain Reaction Innovations at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, is welcoming five new fellows:
- Nathan Arnold (Urbana, Illinois): Room-Temperature, Free Space Photonic Quantum Memory
- Ryan Cardiff (Seattle, Washington): Bioproduction of Valuable Chemicals from Carbon Waste Using Engineered Bacteria
- Brandon Grinkemeyer (Somerville, Massachusetts): Photonic Interconnects for Scalable Quantum Computing
- Kyle Matthews (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania): Quality MXenes at Scale for Energy and Defense
- Moha Shahjamali (Pleasanton, California): Low-Temperature Pyrolysis Technology to Produce Value-Added Carbon Materials.
- Nathan Arnold (Urbana, Illinois): Room-Temperature, Free Space Photonic Quantum Memory
West Gate at National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, is welcoming four new fellows:
- Ian Brownstein (Denver, Colorado): Reducing the Cost of Distributed Wind Energy With Efficient and Low-Cost Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines
- James Clegern (Loveland, Colorado): Advancing Non-Chemical Battery Storage for Longer Lasting, High-Performance Batteries
- Kian Lopez (Boulder, Colorado): Pressure-Driven Membrane Systems Producing Ultrapure Water for Advanced Manufacturing and Water Treatment Applications
- Ying Sun (San Diego, California): Addressing the Demand for Rare-Earth Elements Through Phytomining, a Technique That Uses Engineered Plants to Extract Rare-Earth Elements from Soil.
- Ian Brownstein (Denver, Colorado): Reducing the Cost of Distributed Wind Energy With Efficient and Low-Cost Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines
LEEP is managed and funded by DOE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office with additional funding for this year’s cohort from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office, and Wind Energy Technologies Office along with DOE’s Office of Electricity, and Office of Science.